Elites of Eden (Children of Eden #2)(77)

I see Lachlan roll his eyes. “Wants to rehabilitate him, probably.”

“Too late for this one,” I snap, “but maybe we can help other people before they go astray.”

Lachlan clenches his hand and pummels his other palm. “There’s only one way to correct people like this,” he says. “The fist if you catch them early, and a more terminal solution if the fist doesn’t work.”

The guard laughs and, recognizing a like-minded man in the young official Lachlan pretends to be, waves us through to another man, who waves a handheld device over us, checking us for weapons. I assumed we’d bring the guns, but Lachlan said no. No weapons are allowed in the secure area, not even for the guards. Lachlan says this will make everything easier. When there are weapons, people die . . . and some of those people might be us.

All we have to do is get Ash out of his cell.

The guard escorts us to a stark room that is bare except for two chairs, a table with built-in hand restraints, and a dark tinted window I can’t see through. “Wait here,” he says. “I’ll bring the prisoner to you.”

“Lachlan,” I whisper, “there will be someone watching.” I tilt my head toward the window. “And if he’s handcuffed to the table . . .”

“Shh,” he cautions. “It just means we have to act right away.” The original plan was to pretend to interrogate him until we were sure the guards were in the right position. I thought I had a few minutes to brace myself, to take a few more deep breaths. I’m not ready for this!

But I have to be.

“We have to do it outside, in the main room,” Lachlan says, so we step out of the interview chamber.

“Psst!” I hear from the cell next to the interview room. Lachlan shakes his head. Don’t get involved. Focus, he seems to project. But I can’t help looking.

It’s a small, portly man I don’t recognize. He’s dressed in a gray prison uniform, and there are marks on the exposed skin of his face and hands that look like burns. He creeps up to me then says the most frightening thing of all. “I know who you are.”

My eyes fly open wide in horror. He’s speaking in a low voice now, but all he has to do is shout, get a guard’s attention, and we’re done for. “What do you want?” I hiss.

To my dismay, he starts to blubber. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to tell them, I swear.”

He might know me, but I have no idea who he might be. “Who are you?”

He says a name I don’t know. “Clayton Hill.” Then he adds, “You look so much like your mother, and your brother. I’m so sorry she was killed. It’s all my fault.” Tears stream down his pudgy cheeks. “I didn’t even hold out very long. I couldn’t. They . . . they . . .” He holds up his hands, showing the burn marks. “Then they told me she was killed. That was worse than the torture. She was such a lovely person. Such a big, kind heart.”

Can it be? “You’re . . . the Center official who was helping her?”

He holds his hands through the bars in supplication now. “Forgive me, please. Forgive me for not being strong enough.”

It wasn’t Lark. It wasn’t her fault. The bitterness that had consumed me at the thought that she, however inadvertently, brought about Mom’s death evaporates.

I have to force myself to turn away because the guard is bringing Ash out now. His hands are bound behind his back, his pale, confused face bruised. He’s staggering; the guard has to hold him up. Is he drugged? For a second his bleary eyes see nothing. Then he seems to wake up, and in a horrible moment, before I can flash him a warning gesture, before he can figure things out himself, he blurts out, “Rowan? What are you doing here?”

Bikk! The guards flanking Ash look confused. We could probably play it off, say he was drugged, confused, or attempting a ruse, that he’s never seen me before. But suspicions once roused are hard to quell, and we only have one chance at this.

We had a plan. Such a good plan. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last few days it’s that plans almost always change.

Lachlan lowers his trendy green-tinted specs and looks at me over the rims with his beautiful second-child eyes. “Ready?” he mouths. My hand goes to the pearls at my throat, and I just barely nod.

As if we choreographed the move for weeks instead of talking about it for a scant few hours, Lachlan lunges at Ash’s face with the pen he’s been twiddling all this time. The guards, probably thinking Lachlan is trying to assassinate their prisoner, reach for the pen . . . but suddenly it isn’t a pen anymore.

At the exact same time, my fingers clench around the short strand of pearls and rip them violently away from my throat. I hurl them to the hard floor and they bounce and roll all around the open room that is lined with cells. Some skip into the entranceway, where more guards are waiting. I see uniformed men and women look down at the innocent-looking little pearls . . . until suddenly they’re not pearls anymore.

I pull my pen that isn’t a pen from my clipboard and press it to my face, where it unrolls itself into a bioadhesive sheet similar to the one in the hazmat suit’s mask. It presses itself to my face, sealing in my eyes, nose, and mouth with just a little gap so I can see and don’t feel like I’m choking. A chemical reaction will give me air for about ten minutes, which should be enough. Through the slight haze of the protective film I can see that Lachlan has his mask on, too.